by Julie Van Drie

Reflections on the Conference, “A Samaritan State Revisited: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Aid, 1950-2016.”

On December 12th and 13th 2016, the colloquium, A Samaritan State Revisited: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Aid, 1950-2016 was held at the Lester B. Pearson Building, the main office of Global Affairs Canada, in Ottawa, ON. The conference involved an array of academics and professionals on the history of Canada’s foreign aid policies since 1950, on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Dr. Keith Spicer’s A Samaritan State?[1] The conference featured 17 speakers, all of whom gave a presentation on a specific aspect of Canada’s humanitarian aid policy. With approximately 150 attendees, undergraduate and graduate students, research assistants, professors, academics, bureaucrats, ambassadors, and other distinguished guests gathered together in the impressive Robertson Room at Global Affairs Canada to engage with this important field of study, and explore questions about Canada’s past role in foreign aid and development.

On Thursday February 16, CNHH member John Foster was at York for the launch of the LAWG collection. He wrote: “The event was quite wonderful. I attach the ribbon cutting moment, with Prof. Liisa North of York and Caese Levo, former LAWG librarian, both of whom have been instrumental in organizing the collection. We are so lucky that CERLAC negotiated space and is hosting.”

Photo: John Foster

John presented the archives at Carleton University today at the Workshop on Canada’s Past and Future in the Americas in the session on “Historical Perspectives on Canada’s Relations with Latin America”, in a paper entitled” “Life Beyond Death: The Story of the Latin American Working Group (LAWG)”

Latin American Working Group (LAWG) library opens at CERLAC’s Resource Centre:

We are pleased to announce the opening of the LAWG (Latin American Working Group) Library, part of CERLAC’s Resource Centre, thanks to the efforts of Liisa North and Caese Levo. As Liisa explains, LAWG “played a leading role in sustaining Canadian solidarity with human rights and women’s organizations, peasant and worker unions, ecumenical groups, refugee agencies, and others in the southern hemisphere during some of its darkest hours of war, military dictatorship, and US intervention, as well as the bright moments of popular and revolutionary breakthroughs.”

The LAWG library is a unique collection of ephemeral publications, pamphlets, posters, letters to the public, reports, and other publications dating from 1965 to 1990. It consists of thousands of documents organized and labeled in 120 “banker’s boxes.” The collection is particularly strong on (from north to south) the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Simon Granovsky-Larsen, Assistant Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Regina, who examined the Guatemala collection, found that it contained “rare and important material on the relatively obscure Guatemalan organization that I happen to be interested in” and that the collection as a whole “would attract visiting researchers from across Canada and beyond, as well as graduate students from a number of disciplines” if it were publicized more.

More information on the LAWG Library, as well as other collections at the CERLAC Resource Centre is available on our website (under “Resources”). The collection can be consulted by contacting CERLAC Coordinator Camila Bonifaz (bonifaz@yorku.ca).

To read John’s blog on the recognition of the LAWG by the Chilean government in the fall of 2016, click HERE.

The fourth newsletter of the CNNH was sent out this afternoon. For any who missed it, the full text of the newsletter can be read below. This update addresses recent posts, events, and news from the members of the Network.

by Sarah Glassford

During the weekend of 9-11 September 2016, roughly 50 scholars, archivists, museum curators, and aid practitioners gathered at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia to discuss the oldest and arguably most complex of the world’s major humanitarian organizations. “Histories of the Red Cross Movement: Continuity & Change” brought together representatives of more than a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, North America, and Australasia in lively discussions of Red Cross history, Red Cross archives, and the nature of humanitarianism itself. This is the first in a series of blog posts reporting and reflecting on the issues raised at the conference.

“Histories of the Red Cross Movement: Continuity & Change” drew together three thought-provoking keynote speakers from different parts of the globe: American political scientist Michael Barnett (University Professor of International Affairs and Political Science at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, Washington, DC), European historian Davide Rodogno (Professor and Head of the International History Department at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva), and New Zealander historian Margaret Tennant (Professor Emeritus and Honorary Research Fellow at Massey University, Palmerston North). Each took a particular approach to thinking about the nature of humanitarianism and its history, but collectively their remarks paint a picture of a research field coming into its own.